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Before we talk about ice cream for breakfast, we should probably talk about lettuce. Spoiler alert: the ice cream we ate is the same color as the lettuce, which means that one of them has food coloring in it and the other doesn’t, yet I still let my family eat both.

Hahaha, I let them eat lettuce. As if they had to beg me for it. “Please Mom can’t we just have more salad?!” said none of my children ever.

I mean, they don’t dislike salad. They just like other parts of the meal better. But whatever. They are good eaters and they eat a wide variety of fruits and veggies and so what if they ate green ice cream for breakfast last Wednesday?

So lettuce. Let-us talk about that already. (get it? lettuce=let-us. that is so amazingly funny) Look what came out of our garden last week!

We’ll be enjoying meal after meal of this lettuce from our garden as the rain has made our lettuce go crazy. (I won’t even tell you that none of the rest of our garden is even planted yet. Hello graduation preparation and bathroom remodel. You are cramping our gardening style.)

See what a pretty lunch we had the first day we picked lettuce? Creamy Mac and Cheese with peas and salad is the easiest lunch ever, by the way. (Can you actually call it a salad if you don’t add anything but Ranch Dressing? We were out of other salad veggies that day.)

Now, about that green ice cream. First the back story:

About four years ago I surprised the boys by making Homemade Ice Cream for breakfast on our very last day of school. The following year, they declared that we had always had ice cream on the last day of school and that it was a tradition and that we simply must do it again. I believe they told me this at bedtime the night before our last day of school, which of course meant that while I loved the idea, I did not love the idea making homemade ice cream at midnight or 6:00 am. So I told them no, and then I decided on a splurge of all splurges and surprised them the next morning with not only store-bought ice cream – but a box of ice cream cones too.

(The “Best Mom Ever” Award went to me that day. But then I made them do their living room and bathroom chores so I immediately went back to “Best Mom Ever” status after breakfast.)

Anyway, the Last Day of School Ice Cream tradition has continued (which I only do because we home school because it would truly be wrong of me to feed my kids sugar cones filled with drippy sugar and then send them to be instructed by other adults). The three younger boys finished their school work last Friday, but patiently waited for Asa to finish his last college final on Tuesday (he’s been getting dual credits for high school/college this year – woot!) so that we could celebrate by having ice cream for breakfast.

It was grand. But now we should probably talk about vegetables again.

I hit some great price matching deals on berries this week. 99¢ for blackberries? Yes, please. Plus I got great prices on strawberries and raspberries. We’ve been eating these delicious fruits with just about every meal, so these are already almost gone. (We put the food away at our house, I’m telling you.)

Have any of you ever tried that Hormel Natural Choice Bacon? I was excited to see it at the store since it is a “better for you” brand. It was quite tasty!

Friday night I experimented with another new recipe we all loved: Sloppy Salsa Chicken. Don’t tell, but I’m almost finished with a project I’ve been working on for several months in an effort to simplify our (yours and mine!) evening meal time. Later this week, I plan to reveal some packets I’ve been putting together which include recipes, complete grocery lists, and instructions for creating five meals that can be made ahead all at once, then frozen for fast real-food meals for your family. Details coming!!

Here’s a little sneak peek at one of the packet cover pages:

There’s also a Chicken Edition, and then I’ll be working on several additional editions (I couldn’t resist) for the future like breakfast, lunch box, ground turkey, and others!

So back to last week’s food details. It was a Bountiful Basket week for me, and I almost bought the whole truck. Man, we get some good deals from BB!

Along with all you see here, I also got a huge box of sweet corn. Which leads me to Mother’s Day.

I wanted grilled burgers with watermelon and sweet corn. So that is what my men made me. As you can see, I worked on my corn and melon before my burger. Ooh, and Matt put some fresh asparagus from our garden on the grill too. So yum.

After we digested, we played our traditional game of three-on-three Mother’s Day soccer. I so stink at soccer. But it sure was fun.

One final bit about last week…

Some sweet friends gave me a basket full of thank-you gifts and look what was included!

Yes, it is a coffee mug that is almost as big as my head. Almost. As you see here, I filled it just about to the top. This meant that after I finished drinking it on Saturday morning, I absolutely did conquer the world and solve all of earth’s biggest challenges (it’s a caffeine miracle).

So there you have it. Berries, vegetables, ice cream, and a huge mug of coffee. That about sums up last week for me. (I also did laundry and cleaned, but who wants the boring details on that? No one.)

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I had put it off long enough.

Admittedly, I don’t go to the dentist as often as I’m supposed to. I actually had no idea when I had last been in for a cleaning/check-up and I was afraid to make an appointment and have my dentist shake his head at me as he told me how long it had been. Yes, I am 37 and I was afraid of being scolded. Go figure.

But, I had been experiencing an area of pain in one of my back teeth for several months. I realize I was only delaying the inevitable, but I just wasn’t very eager to go into the dentist office.

And so I put it off. In the meantime, I began to avoid a very important food: Lettuce.

There was something about the crunch of lettuce that shot a searing pain from my jaw all the way to…I don’t know…South Dakota? And so, not only did I avoid going to the dentist, I avoided eating lettuce because it is not fun for pain to shoot from your jaw all the way to your northern state border.

I finally decided that I was being unwise, and also a whiny baby…so I made the appointment.

The dentist only gently suggested that I come in more often, then looked and found my painful spot and said, yes…it looks like I have a tiny bit of decay on a back tooth. They had a cancellation the next day. Did I want to come then? Well sure I did. Gulp.

The next day I was ushered back and as I sat down in the special chair, I had this tremendous urge to buckle my seat belt. Am I a weirdo, or what? Apparently sitting in the dental chair made me feel like I had just taken a seat in my mini-van. What, was I afraid I might fall out or something?

They put the cute little bib on me, then the dentist gave me the option: the cavity was so tiny that I may not want to mess with having a shot to deaden the area. Did I want to try receiving the filling without having the area numbed?

As it was a Wednesday and I hadn’t really been looking forward to drooling down the left side of my face during Bible class that evening, I decided to give it a go. But I think I said something like, “If at any point during the drilling I feel like punching you, can I then have a shot?”

Yes, I actually said that…to my dentist. I have got to learn when and where it is appropriate to use my sarcasm.

Thankfully, he understood that I was joking (I think) and said that yes, I could have a shot if the pain was too much to handle.

Then they started to drill. I braced myself for the pain. But it never came. Then they put the composite filling in my mouth and drilled that down and then took off my bib. I was done.

Not only did I never have the urge to punch my dentist, I instead had a very big urge to hug him. Painless dental work, really? And I could still feel both of my lips too? What a deal!

Of course, that night I went home and celebrated with (you guessed it) some lettuce. We’re obviously big partiers at our house.

So yes, today I am SO grateful that I got my dentist appointment over with and that it truly was painless. And I’m thankful that I can eat lettuce without pain. I know that’s silly but I truly am thankful for it. (I suppose I should also be grateful that I didn’t punch the man drilling my tooth. Or maybe he should be grateful for that?)

What are you thankful for this Gratituesday? Write about it on your blog, then come link up with us here. If you don’t have a blog, be sure to leave a comment letting us know what you’re grateful for!

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I figured out a French Dressing recipe that includes only real food ingredients and avoids high fructose corn syrup! It also means I can enjoy Taco Salad the way I used to – again without the high fructose corn syrup. Mmm, real food. I love revisiting my favorites and eating them in a healthier way!

Back in the day when I didn’t know what high fructose corn syrup was or understand that it was bad for us…I used to make a killer taco salad with Catalina Salad Dressing. Man that stuff tasted good!

After a little experimenting, I came up with a yummy homemade French salad dressing that tastes even better than the store bought ever tasted! It’s so easy to put together, it’s inexpensive to make, and it tastes wonderful in my taco salad! It’s a blast from the past, only better.

And speaking of healthy…um…or not so healthy…take note of what we’re having for lunch Tuesday. It’s Asa’s birthday, which means he gets to choose everything we eat that day. He hesitantly asked if we could please have ramen noodles. Blech. Okay, since it’s your birthday. Can’t be worse than hot dogs. I find it funny that he thinks of ramen noodles as a treat! And um…$0.18/pack? WHAT is this stuff made of? Never mind. I don’t want to know.

In other news, we have an extra little boy “moving in with us” for a few weeks off and on all summer. Remember the red head? We love having him here! Plus, some friends from out of town arrived last night to stay for the week. We’re in for some busy, fun days!!